Got Animals?

Corey, yeah he is a male....

One thing about Rotties, awesome dogs, and it is the owners....guaranteed you won't walk in my house without me, but if I walk up to you with my dog outside the house, he will be your buddy, he loves to play, loves kids, likes dogs and cats even....

but the house and my truck is his....

they are dominant dogs, so require a bit different training, socialization is key, introduce them always to kids, other dogs, people, etc...

and never let them be the alpha with you, never, as they can be a handful...my dog tested me for the first couple of years, but not anymore, he knows who the boss is...

I did not get him fixed until he was 5, and they really don't max out on weight until about 4 or 5 years old...you have to watch after they get fixed, no more free feeding, they will eat like pigs....

so, if you're not going to breed your dog, get it fixed, 6 months or later is a good age, but the longer you leave them go, the worse traits they will develop...

I walk my dog with two other rotties, one male and one female, surprisingly my male and the other one get along fairly well, but since the woman got the male, the female rottie has become dominant, we used to be able to walk with no problems, but now her female tries to dominate my dog, and he'll take it for a bit, but not very long, the last 3 times out walking all 3 dogs have started fighting, mainly because the woman is not the alpha over her dogs, they control her, so i have to jump in there and break them up....

last time out, they started fighting, i jumped right in, my dog is very well trained, so i grabbed her female which is about 85 pounds, gave it to her, then went to break up the males, i got hold of her male, then told mine to go sit, which he immediately does, then i pinned her male to let him know who the alpha was, had to hold him down for a couple of minutes before he submitted....

told her that were not walking anymore until she learns how to train her dogs and get control of them, otherwise they will keep fighting, the real problem will come when she is walking them by herself and they see another dog...

yes we have socialized it bigtime. We let it out to play with the neighbords pit bull and they just have a blast. along with my parents Dalmatian. He has only tested me a few times and that didn't last long. I use to train with some of the k9's when I was in the military which helped with the alpha role thing, but the way they train doesn't help with the socialization aspect or help with getting it to listen to my wife.

He's fixed already and the funny thing? We leave food out all the time because he doesn't eat like crazy at all. In fact we have changed his food up like crazy and he loves it for 2 days then just stops. we leave an entire bowl out all the time or else he will maybe eat a cup full per day then walk away. Vet said just leave it out all the time until he gets fat or starts eating then start rationing it. I don't want a fat dog, but damn he doesn't eat like most other dogs I've seen.

Only way he really eats like crazy is if we put wet food in with it. We started this afew months of trying different things. Vet said just make him eat it no matter what it takes (wet food every other day or whatever), but only do this while he's growing like crazy. After one year make him deal.